Frankenstein rescued! - Fisher Prometheus - Part 6 - First ride

[staffy]

Some of you may have seen this Fisher Prometheus titanium beast on flea bay in late 2021, a total Frankenstein, check out the road forks & brake, trials stem, welded in seat post, patched top tube, drilled out cable guides......everyone needs a challenge right?

As advertised.....



Back at the workshop things didn't get any better.....



The Fisher Evolution system including 1-1/4 inch headset and 80mm wide bottom bracket were innovations back in 1989, the 140mm wide axle and even stranger aluminium tube placed over it were not part of the original concept, I have no idea what someone was thinking!!!


I can only assume major cracks had led the previous owners to weld the patch the top tube and then add an additional titanium fixed seat tube mast. This had been welded in, capped off with a solid billet of titanium onto which the saddle was loosely attached with a old style BMX clamp!!!

There's not too much information about these frame only Fishers, I know it was made at Sandvik in the USA and designed by Gary Fisher to be the ultimate mountain bike with all the signature Fisher features of the time, including, the evolution headset and bottom bracket with press fit bearings and extra wide shell, Hipstay chainstays and cast titanium dropouts. The restoration objective was to get back to how it looked in the catalogue in 1990.





More pictures and the restoration story to follow.....

 

[kingoffootball]

That is my old frame previously owned by clockworkgazz.

As Gazz stated, the original patch was damaged when he got it, so he took it to Vernon Barker to repair it. From there, that patch survived at least one other owner, who I bought the bike from. It was all good for a long time for me, until one day during a winter commute a pedestrian stepped out in front of me on High Street, Hull. In avoiding them, the rear wheel hit a hole where one of the cobblestones was missing and heard/felt a crack

I notice the photo has gone from my thread, but I have a photo somewhere of how it cracked where one of the welds for the patch was. I stripped the frame and it sat with plenty of company in my garage until I had to get rid of the majority of the fleet before they went in storage as I moved abroad. I sold the Prometheus frame at a bike jumble for £50 (the same I originally paid for the whole bike delivered) to a guy who then told me he was a titanium welder and he went around looking for damaged frames to buy up. I have no idea whether he was the person responsible for the butchery that was inflicted upon it after that.

 

[kingoffootball]

BTW, if it came with the stem in the advert and you don't want it, I might be interested. I need a long, high rise stem - prefereable a steel quill one, but that one might at least be a good temporary solution.

 

[staffy]

That is my old frame previously owned by clockworkgazz.

As Gazz stated, the original patch was damaged when he got it, so he took it to Vernon Barker to repair it. From there, that patch survived at least one other owner, who I bought the bike from. It was all good for a long time for me, until one day during a winter commute a pedestrian stepped out in front of me on High Street, Hull. In avoiding them, the rear wheel hit a hole where one of the cobblestones was missing and heard/felt a crack

I notice the photo has gone from my thread, but I have a photo somewhere of how it cracked where one of the welds for the patch was. I stripped the frame and it sat with plenty of company in my garage until I had to get rid of the majority of the fleet before they went in storage as I moved abroad. I sold the Prometheus frame at a bike jumble for £50 (the same I originally paid for the whole bike delivered) to a guy who then told me he was a titanium welder and he went around looking for damaged frames to buy up. I have no idea whether he was the person responsible for the butchery that was inflicted upon it after that.

Wow, thanks for the history, it had definitely been through the wars….

 

[staffy]

BTW, if it came with the stem in the advert and you don't want it, I might be interested. I need a long, high rise stem - prefereable a steel quill one, but that one might at least be a good temporary solution.

You can have the stem karma, PM me

 

[kingoffootball]

I am happy this is going to be rescued. I was very sad when it came up on Ebay. If I'd known that was going to happen to it I might have handed back the money and put it into storage.

You can have the stem karma, PM me

That is very generous of you, thank you.

Watching the thread with interest.

 

[staffy]

Part 1 - Hacksaw, files and drills

There was no option but to dive in and get the hacksaw out.....which revealed more rings than an oak tree!!!



Multiple tubes had been inserted into the seat tube and all welded together. Time to remove as much of the weld as possible and then work out how to get the tubes out...looking worse before getting better hopefully!!



I made a tool from an old handlebar (in black in the photo below), and used it to hook the 3 extra tubes from the seta tube....



Now to remove the old repair patch to see what's underneath....go easy with the angle finder....



and then filing, in total about 40 hours of filing!!!



Next to remove the original seat tube, 31.8mm hole saw....



Worked in a fashion, back to the file to do the job properly....and after another 10 hours of filing and hacksawing....this is how it looked....



A bit more filing needed to tidy up the seat stays but I was beginning think this could be recovered! I though about replacing the whole seat tube and top tube but that would loose the original bottle and cable bosses, so the plan was to make repair pieces and weld them in. Originally I thought I would have to make some custom machined tubes to fit but Paragon Machine Works in the USA came up trumps with their standard seat tube inserts, so more hacksaw to cut to the right length....



More filing and then we have all the tubes cut to length and mitred by hand...



Bingo!!!!! Maybe a bit more filing????

Next time a bit more metal work and then time for welding, fingers crossed!!!!

 

[kingoffootball]

Wow, this is going to be an amazing repair!

 

[mynchiboy]

Really impressed with the work you're putting into this! I recall being interested in this frame when Clockworkgazz passed it on. Pleased to see that it's receiving the love it deserves. Tuning in for more updates

 

[Canuckbiker]

Yes, very impressive efforts so far, can't wait to see the welding